swimming

My name is Kiel Nowakowski. I'm a Class of 2012 graduate, and I wanted to share with you guys the project I've been working on for the past year. Together with my filmmaking partner, a longtime friend and former Iowa swimmer, I'm making a documentary film about the world of competitive swimming. One of our main "characters" will be Michigan swimmer (former swimmer, technically) Connor Jaeger.

Those of you familiar with our swim program will know Connor. For those that don't, Connor is a 2012 Olympian, 3-time NCAA champion, and was one of the captains of this year's team. Because of NCAA rules, we haven't been able to announce his involvement in our project until very recently.

A brief bit about me/us: I'm a lifelong Michigan fan (it was the only school I applied to), and my partner, Brian Tremml, swam at the University of Iowa, where he also studied film; this project is his baby. We're from Holland, Michigan (same hometown as Desmond Morgan, but we went to Holland High and he went to West Ottawa) and have been friends since middle school. We reconnected after college in order to make this film, and we currently live in Iowa City.

We're currently running a Kickstarter campaign, and this is the part where I ask you to please check it out; the video and link are below. As a near-obsessive MGoBlog reader, I know as well as you do that Michigan people care a hell of a lot about our school, athletes, and our people in general. We really want to get the Michigan community on board with this project, and I know that MGoBlog represents a good chunk of that community. I hope you'll take a moment to look over our project and share it with anyone you think might be interested. You can check out our website too, waterismysky.com

According to the Lincoln Journal Star, Michigan ranks at the top of the Big Ten for conference standings for 2012-13 (average conference finish). Minnesota's high ranking surprised me, as did MSU's low ranking (although they did not win a conference championship this year).

The author does not define "average B1G finish" but it seems to be a simple arithmetic mean. In any event, congratulations to our student athletes on their fine overall finish. Conference results below.

For those who need a bit of distraction before whatever it is that's happening in an hour or two, a good time to note that both men's swimming and women's gymnastics are currently ranked No. 1 nationally.

Men's swimming & diving won 10 of 13 events to beat Purdue 153-90. Not a big surprise, considering their depth (each individual event victory came from a different athlete) and that M is 56-0 against Purdue in dual meets.

Women's gymnastics was pre-season #10 and zipped (flipped?) up to #1 with their high-scoring victory last week in the three-team Cancun Classic, their first #1 national ranking since 2000. Yesterday, they beat Nebraska, pre-season #7 and 2011 Big Ten Champion, 196.900-196.300. The women currently share #1 with Florida (identical scores last week), but their score this week is higher than Florida's, so...

Men's gymnastics is preseason #1, not surprising considering their Olympic experience. But having several members on the U.S. National Team may affect their ranking after their first meet (Jan. 19), which is apparently the same time as a required U.S. team camp. Every team should have such problems. A good test of their depth and experience for their rookies.

Kudos to U-M swimmer Connor Jaeger for winning his 1500m freestyle heat in 14:59.97. He lost track of his lap count and didn't hear the bell, so kept going. (Unlike collegiate, counters aren't allowed in the water.)

I don't have a link right now, but Stephen Nesbitt of The Daily tweeted that Jim Richardson, the coach of the UM Womens Swim Team just resigned after 27 years at the helm
Clarification: He retired, not resigned. And MGoShoe provided the link below